Somewhere there’s a picture of me in complete and utter relaxation. It shows me asleep in bed, at maybe 8 years old or so. My arms are outstretched and my kitten, Tigerina, nestles up against me.

At least I think this picture exists. I’ve been looking for it for several years now among the thousands in our family albums. I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t make it up as an image of a feeling I would so love to get back.

Because whether or not the photo is real, I know the feeling is, or was. I can remember waking up as a boy without a care in the world. My body felt totally relaxed and my mind was as calm as a midsummer sky. I was unworried, unhurried and ready for anything.
Now don’t tell me I’m making that feeling up, too. I know I felt it! You probably have too. Haven’t you?

In adult terms, we could call this feeling the state of being at home with oneself – or, for the more religiously minded, spiritually awake.

If you can think of being spiritually awake as being at one with your inner ox, read on.
The ox as a symbol of one’s true nature is the theme of a dandy little book recently published by William B. Eerdmans of Grand Rapids. It’s called “The Ox-Herder and the The Good Shepherd: Finding Christ on the Buddha’s Path.” It’s written by Addison Hodges Hart, a retired pastor and university chaplain, who finds Christian parallels in the drawings and writing of a 12th-century Chinese Zen master.

The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures by Kakuan Shien are a classic of Buddhist tradition. (His originals have been lost but many versions have been made.) They show a boy searching for his ox (or, variously, a bull) in the wilderness, tracing his tracks, finding and taming him, and riding him home -- whereupon the ox disappears.

Without giving away too much of the plot, I’ll just say the ox is a symbol of the boy’s true inner self. In Buddhist terms, it is his Buddha-nature, the source of enlightenment. Hart sees a Christian parallel in one’s “true mind in Christ,” a place of spiritual peace leading to a life of compassionate love.

“If we don’t look for that true nature in our selves, we’ll never know it, and we’ll remain lost, alienated and disconnected,” Hart writes. “(W)e will just wander through life … preoccupied with greed and fear and useless amusements.”

In Kakuan’s sweet, simple drawings and accompanying verses, it becomes clear that it’s the boy who’s lost, not the ox. The ox is right where he’s always been, waiting for the boy to find him. But the boy is off course, distracted and confused by life’s choices. Only through meditation can he find his way back to his true self -- or, in Christian terms, “harmony with God and nature,” Hart writes.

Oh, that I could make my way back to my inner ox. It’s not like I haven’t tried.

I have meditated on and off for most of my adult life, with varying degrees of success. The first time I did it I felt like a complete flop. I’d spent the whole time fretting about how I wasn’t doing it right.

I still am not that good at it, but usually find it somewhat relaxing and enjoyable. Still, it’s not uncommon to be halfway through my routine and find I’ve spent the last 10 minutes trying to estimate my taxes.

As for identifying with the lost boy, that’s a cinch.

How is a person supposed to find his inner ox when his mind is constantly chasing after plans and worries? As I wrote in a recent blog post, my mind at 3 a.m. is often “a miserable litany of fussing, a muddy stream of consciousness that just keeps burbling and splitting into a million aimless rivulets.”

My family used to have a cabin on the Muskegon River in Missaukee County, where we would swim in the swift current. Frequently these nasty deer flies would come around and begin biting. To lose them I would dive under the water, swim downstream maybe 25 feet and resurface – and there would be the darn deer fly, buzzing around my head.
That’s what those worries are like. If my Buddha-nature is in my subconscious, I have a really hard time staying down there.

The sweetest of the 10 pictures in the book shows the boy riding the ox home. The ox is tamed and smiling, the boy contentedly playing the flute. Writes the Zen master: “Singing a song, beating time, my heart is filled with indescribable joy.”

The boy has found his true spiritual home, writes Hart – a place of “interior naturalness and ease. … It is like being reborn, becoming childlike, and one can be simple and straightforward.”

Yep, that’s how it felt all right, waking up in the morning at 8 years old. Sure wish I could find that picture.